CUT-WORMS. 



Ever since insect injuries were first talked of and written about 

 in this country, much has been heard of the Cut- 

 worm. Its literature, if collected, would probably be 

 as voluminous as that of the Rocky Mountain Locust, 

 Caloptenus spretus, a portion of which fills two thick 

 octavo volumes, and a part of a third, of the U. S. Ento- 

 mological Commission Reports ; while the losses re- 

 sulting from cut-worms, repeated as they are in 

 each successive year, and occurring alike in every Fig. i. — The . 

 portion of the United States, would doubtless exceed ^^ N0 f ™^ 

 those of the above-named insect. Despite the import- fusca (From.). 

 ant role they play in agricultural affairs, they are permitted to prose- 

 cute their work steadily and persistently, almost unknown, many of 

 them unnamed, and never attaining to the distinguished honor of 

 being made the subject of discussion in a conclave of governors, f 

 or the objects of investigation of a United States Government 

 Commission. 



True, more has been charged upon cut- worms than properly 

 belongs to them. The secret manner in which they prosecute their 

 work — under cover of darkness, and often beneath the surface of 

 the ground — rarely permits them to be detected in their opera- 



* At a conference of the Executives of the States and Territories suffering most from 

 Locust ravages, held at Omaha, Nebraska, on October 25 and 26, 1876, the following 

 were in attendance : Gov. Jno. S Pillsbury, of Minnesota ; Gov. Samuel Kirkwood, of 

 Iowa; Gov, Thomas A. Osborne, of Kansas; Gov. Silas Garber, of Nebraska; Ex-Gov. 

 Eobt. W. Furnas, of Nebraska; Gov. John Jj. Pennington, of Dakota; Gov. C. H. Hardin, 

 of Missouri ; and Prof. C. V. Riley and Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of the U. S. Entomological 

 Com mission. 



